To the End
by YJFanForever13
Summary: They are friends, friends to the end. This is a series of one-shots chronicling the lives of our favorite characters as they grow through middle school and on to college. Ch.1-Rileytown.


**Rileytown**

 _You exist. No one should be as happy as you._ The words kept repeating over and over in her head. She didn't want to believe it. She didn't want to believe the words the girl kept sending to her, but somehow, the more she thought about it, the more she realized the girl was right. Riley Matthews was a nobody. She would never be as good as her parents, and she kept making mistakes with her friends. They didn't deserve that. No one deserved a person like her. So, she suffered in silence. She was a failure, and she didn't want her friends to see just how much she had failed them.

Riley was supposed to be perfect. Riley was supposed to be all sunshine and rainbows. She plastered on a smile at school, pretended everything was alright around Maya. That's what her friends expected her to be. And, she gave it to them. All the while, the texts kept coming.

Secretly, she longed for someone to notice her pain, to ask her if she was alright. No one did. Everyone saw her smile and assumed her life was perfect. Yet, her life was cracking at the edges. Each day took more effort to smile, more effort to act like the normal, carefree Riley. She flirted with Lucas. She talked with Maya. They all did homework at Topanga's. She laughed with her parents. She giggled and smiled. And, the texts just kept on coming.

Finally, she broke. One day, she woke up and just didn't want to go to school. The bed was safe. The covers were warm. No one could get to her in her home. Then Maya came in. So, she pretended to have a fake sickness. She joked with her friend. Then Maya said it. She said the word she absolutely hated now: Rileytown. Without thinking, she pushed Maya off the bed. All she could see was the girl in front of her. All she could hear were her words taunting her. _Only idiots live in a place like Rileytown. You'll never be good enough. That's why you have to create a fake place where everything is wonderful. But, you know it never will be. You don't deserve to be alive._

"You're a bully," she said to Maya, and she walked out. It wasn't until she got to the bathroom that she began to cry. She was breaking, and no one cared. She didn't know how long it would be before she couldn't maintain the face her friends wanted. They would never understand. It would be better to push them away before they got hurt, before they saw her for who she really was.

School came and went. She found herself at Topanga's. When Maya opened her arms for a hug, she longed with all her might to run into the embrace, to sob into her shoulder, to tell her everything. But, she couldn't. She was supposed to be strong. She was supposed to be the shoulder for Maya. And, she had failed. So she dumped the ice cream in Maya's face and left.

When Maya came through the window, she knew she had figured it out. She tried to put on a brave face, but it was too much. She cried. She told Maya everything. And, her friend just listened, rubbed comforting circles into her back. They cried together. Maya took her hands and stared straight into her face. "You don't have to be strong all the time. I love you. We all do."

Riley could do nothing but look. "Why? Why do you love me?"

"Because you're you, in smiles and in tears."

With those words, the ones of the girl's disappeared. They still stung, but not with the same venom as before. Maya believed in her, Maya who had gone through so many more struggles than a girl her age should go through in years. Her best friend cared about her. Wasn't that enough?

"Do you mean that?"

"Do you even have to ask?" And Maya just held her as she cried, cried for not trusting in her friends, cried for not realizing the truth sooner. They were by her side, for better or for worse. No bully could ever change that.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **Thanks so much for reading guys! I hope to update this at least once a week, sometimes more if I have the time. If you have any prompt ideas, let me know! I'm game for pretty much everything except for Riarkle and Riley/Maya. Thanks again for reading!**


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